Training Day

Dear Riffraff (aka fellow commuters),

I have beef with you. No, that is not me inviting you out for a steak dinner in broken English. As I’d prefer not to die of old age writing about them all I have chosen the Top 5 highlights, all equally maddening. If you are caught doing any of the below you should be tagged with a tracking bracelet or tattooed accordingly and shamefully, and banished at least from public transport if not society.

Standers on the left - as per the many signs, escalator etiquette is to stand on the right leaving the left free for those can’t abide the glacial pace of the moving stairs. Do it. Do it, if for no other reason than that EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT. Also, don’t STOP when you dismount the escalator at the top or the bottom. Nobody wants a people pileup, particularly one made up of people like you.

Bargers and runners – the next train is only a few minutes behind the one you are so desperate to dive into, relax, unless you’re in Sydney, in which case run like the wind or you’ll expire waiting for the next one. If you trip, I laugh.

Pole huggers – the pole may be a foul festering thing to be touched as little as possible, but it serves a purpose (not for dancing). When you hug the pole, others have nothing to hold onto and we certainly don’t want to touch you. If it’s just that you need to hug something that’s sad, but get a friend. Or a coma. Either way.

People under trains – get into the train, not under it silly! Not to make light of a serious issue *totally makes light of serious issue* but if you’re going to do it, please refrain from doing it in peak hour. Spare a thought for the poor driver and the commuters you leave traumatised from having to watch men in garish orange overalls fight tooth and nail as it were, to locate you and take you away. People never get over seeing those outfits. Not to mention the thousands of people you make late to their riveting jobs. Imagine the anxiety that commuters underground experience spending unnecessary precious minutes without reception for their phones and gadgetry, maybe even being forced to interact with one another.

Early get ups – there is ample time once the train stops to disembark. I am as eager for you to leave the train as you are but I go out of my way to block your way to the door when you get up too early. Politeness is recommended as when you are rude I put a hex on you.

The following abominations did not make the cut, but I’ve got my eye on you:

People who cough or sneeze without covering their mouths, nose pickers, molesty press-up-againsters, broadcasters, odorous people, hipsters, foreigners (just kidding**), the gap, parents who don’t control their children, children who are out of control, starers, people who can’t use the entry/exit gates, pickpocketers (you really don’t have to pick a pocket or two, get a job), Goths, people who make conversation, sleepers, the sick, mutterers, Mormons, morons, people who think the train is a disco, anyone bleeding, drunkards proposing marriage, the man on the Piccadilly Line who hysterically demanded the owner of a suitcase to identify themselves while barricading the doors in peak hour so he could “get the bomb off the train” presumably to subject the people on the platform to the inevitable blast, people with delicious smelling fast food, hotties, people on the cusp of old age who may be offended if they were offered a seat, loud breathers and people who insist on boarding the train before people have finished disembarking.

One day your kind will be suitably tagged to set off humiliating alarms when you enter shared spaces, and removed when you offend as per the above, the behaviour guidelines in this piece will become enshrined in law and all will be right in the universe. Until then this gauntlet will have to suffice, together with a barking order to refrain from being so oblivious, rude and just plain weird when commuting. 

Kyrani

**Or am I?